Should You Buy Your Next Mattress on the Internet?

For as much time and money as we spend on our mattresses—and the important things we do on them—you’d think we’d give buying one a lot of thought.

And you’d be wrong.

For many of us, it’s about 40 prone, self-conscious seconds, clothes on, in a showroom, staring into a fluorescent light, followed by an “I’ll take it” that’s more about relief than approval.

But wait, there’s not a lot of relief, because the markup on mattresses is mysterious enough that it’s impossible to know if you’ve been taken or not. And your 40-second test didn’t tell you much anything about whether this is a good location for you to sleep, fuck, and scan Twitter for the next two decades.

That’s why a new approach to selling mattresses is so novel, and so welcome.

Casper is one of these new-age businesses. Based in New York City, it doesn’t have a showroom. It ships the mattress to you, in a compact box. That’s right: Your mattress comes to your house in a box via UPS!

You cut along the dotted line and—voila!—like a pool toy or a Stephen A. Smith diatribe, the mattress inflates.

You position it on the bed, and then comes the really relaxing part: You have 100 days to decide if it’s the mattress for you. This approach marks Casper—and a similar rival, Leesa—as part of the new wave of consumer goods sellers with a decidedly consumer-first focus. Think Warby Parker and Netflix.

The queen-sized example Casper sent to my home goes for $850, with a $50 discount coupon floating on the Web, which is very competitive for a good mattress. In fact, if it lasts as long as my previous mattress (20 years), it'll be a stinking bargain. An 11-cents-a-night bargain. (Casper does offer a 10-year warranty on top of the 100-day evaluation period, and claims that to sell the same product in stores it would need to charge three times more. Some of the latex mattress makers offer a 25-year warranty.)

So the big question: Is this mattress any good? I put it through its paces for 30 wintry nights, then spoke with the Men’s Health sleep expert, Dr. C. William Winter, about what I learned and what you should be thinking about when you pick a mattress. (Check out the Best Sleep Positions to find out what the way you sleep says about you.)

There’s a Mattress Revolution Taking Place

It wasn’t that long ago that nearly all mattresses were built around coiled springs. There were outliers, like the Temper-Pedic (memory foam) and Sleep Numbers (air bladder) brands that you likely heard marketed on the radio, but it was a world dominated by Serta, Sealy, and Simmons. That’s changed to a degree in recent years, with non-spring-based mattresses increasing their market share.

There are air-bladder-based mattresses, like those made by Sleep Number. They promise endless adjustability. You can change the amount of air in the bladder on a daily—heck, hourly—basis.

But most people don’t want endless change; they want to set it and forget it, for a long period of time. On the negative side, the mechanical nature of the air bladder introduces the ability for your mattress to “break."

A latex mattress is another option. Its selling points: personalization, durability, and eco-friendliness.

"The cool thing [about latex mattresses] is that they are completely customizable,” says Winter, who sleeps on one, from Savvy Rest. “You could have a mattress split down the middle, where your side is different than your partner’s side. And the absence of springs means one less thing that can wear out.

"Theoretically, the mattress never needs to be replaced. If part of it wore out or needed to be replaced, you could simply open the liner and replace the faulty layer with a new piece, which isn’t terribly expensive,” says Winter.

He adds: “If your needs change or your preferences change—or your partner changes—you can unzip the mattress and pull her layers out, and throw them out, and get new layers for your new girlfriend."

Memory foam mattresses—like Tempur-Pedic—are celebrated for their body-enveloping support. People with back pain often sing their praises. On the other hand, that enveloping can make them uncomfortable on hot nights and can make moving around on the mattress difficult. And sometimes it’s very important that we be able to move around on our mattresses.

“It’s like screwing on a marshmallow,” Dr. Winter writes in an email about foam mattresses in general, adding, "I unfortunately have to disagree with the band Spinal Tap's conclusion, 'The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin’.’ "

The Casper is a bit of a hybrid, with a latex layer on top and the memory foam underneath. You get the benefits of both, Casper claims. What you lose, though, by purchasing from a startup with a lean business model and an eye on costs, is the ability to customize it.

Bigger isn’t always better

Large, deep, cushy mattresses have taken the market by storm in recent years, with some exceeding 14 inches in depth. Dr. Winter said that while the plush tops no doubt feel very comfortable, a lot of factors go into what’s right for you. The Casper is just 10 inches thick, with a 1 1/2-inch synthetic latex layer atop a 1 1/2 inch layer, this one of memory foam, with 7 inches of foam as a base. The Leesa has a similar mattress, which was just redesigned (and a similar 100-day vetting period).

Evaluating a Mattress Takes Time

Even if you go to the independent mattress seller’s store and put in the Consumer Reports' recommended 10 minutes of lying-around time, you’re not going to know much till you sleep a night on the darn thing.

When you do, you might find the mattress is too firm and hurts your back, or what was pleasingly plush in the showroom is claustrophobically enveloping or sweat pore-dilatingly hot in the wee hours.

In fact, the only thing that Dr. Winter recommends in purchasing a new mattress is that you have a guaranteed window to return or replace it.

“I’d avoid a mattress deal or a mattress dealership that says you buy, you own it,” Winter says. “You can’t just sit there, lie flat on your back in your street clothes, and say this is the mattress for me for the next X number of years.

“I’d encourage guys to work out a deal so the mattress can always come back in, at least, the first month."

While a 100-night trial period is great marketing, my experience was that it took about a week to make a decision. My first couple nights with the Casper were a bit off-putting. I had, strangely enough, grown accustomed to the trench that ran through the middle of our bed from 20 years of sleeping with my wife. Gravity—and our great love for each other, honey—pulled at us inexorably each evening. If we didn’t come together, it was because someone didn’t want to. And sleeping close to each other has its benefits. Recent research showed that couples that slept within touching distance of each other got more, better rest.

By Night #3 we were past the newness of it, and we settled in. Casper’s latex-over-memory foam construction gives it some of what Dr. Winter calls that “reinserted into the womb” feeling. At the same time, the latex is firm enough that you—and your sex life—aren’t swallowed by it.

After a week on the Casper, my wife said that a pain she had been feeling in her leg and hip through the fall had gone away. It hasn’t returned.

That didn't surprise Winter.

"I know people who say they bought a mattress and the back pain they had for 10 years went away; I believe it,” he says. “I went on a trip to the Midwest and slept on a hotel mattress for two nights and my back never hurt worse. People often wake up after a bad night’s sleep and say, ‘Oh, my back’s all locked up and I have sciatica or whatever. It definitely works the other way, too.' "

Conclusion

All in all, we're sold—for now. The Casper is plenty comfortable, and we’re sleeping soundly, night after night. If you’re in the market, check out your options; the perfect matters for you is a very personal decision, and the mattress market is anything but tired these days, with competitors including Casper, Leesa, and the dial-it-in latex mattress folks offering alternatives and competitive pricing to the coiled spring firms that dominate the market. Sleep (well) on that.

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